I Tried Tovala’s New Family Meals, and I’m No Longer Sinking Under Decision Fatigue

I do not love cooking, and, full disclosure, I never have. There were spells during my single days where I tried every meal-prep kit that popped up in my Instagram feed. But the instructions always felt too complicated. I disliked all the waste (so many small plastic packets!), and having to monitor each component of a meal as it cooked separately felt like a burden, zapping all fun out of the process. 

So, while I enjoy baking — my family loves my take on the famous Marian Burros plum torte — I’d been doing “girl dinner” for pretty much every meal for years before I got married and had my two kids. Cobbling together a glorified snack (a little protein, a little carb, a little veg/fruit) and calling it a meal is something that I miss now, since feeding a household of two adults and two toddlers requires a bit more planning.

Maybe it was one too many Trader Joe’s organic chicken nuggets hitting the floor, but I got so excited when I heard that Tovala, the smart toaster oven, was expanding its meal subscription service to include “family meals” designed for four people. The Chicago-based company sent me their Smart Oven Pro and four Family Meals so that I could test them out, and here’s my full review. 

Tovala is a smart oven-based meal delivery service. Each week, the company sends you recipes with prepped ingredients that you cook in the brand’s own smart oven by scanning a QR code. The oven automatically cooks the food for you (it cycles between steam, bake, broil, and convection functions on its own), with each recipe taking no longer than 5 minutes to prep and 25 minutes to cook. (The smart oven works without the meal kits, too.)

With the new Family Meal plan, which launched in April, meals are larger, made to be served family style and to provide multiple portions, with sides and mains cooked all together. Take heed, parents of picky eaters: They include separate sauces and toppings, so you can customize each serving for different tastes. 

You’ll need the brand’s oven, which is currently available for free with a meal-kit subscription; the retail price is $299 or $399 depending on which model you get. Choose from meal plans with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, or 16 meals per week. You can browse the Family Meal lineup here. 

The brand sent me the oven first and then, the week my meal trial started, my four meals — sweet and sour crispy chicken with veggie lo mein; classic meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans; BBQ-glazed chicken with mac and cheese and cornbread; and meatballs with tortellini, broccoli, and garlic bread — arrived in a large cardboard box with Styrofoam packaging and cooling bags. Each meal was individually packaged in a lightweight box, and accompanied with a recipe and QR code. You store the meals in the fridge, or, as I did, freeze them for later use, making sure to adhere to the “use by dates.” 

The oven is heavy but fairly simple to assemble. It requires a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) outlet that isn’t being used by anything else, and you’ll need enough space on each side. As directed, I washed the components, filled the steam-water reservoir, and ran the oven empty for a set time to burn off any manufacturing residue. 

Family Meals start at $35.96 per meal (about $8.99 per serving). The Family Meals’ starting price point is lower than that of the regular meals, which start at $9.99 per portion.  

For my trial, I tried sweet and sour chicken; meatloaf with string beans and mashed potatoes; BBQ chicken with cornbread; and ravioli, meatballs and broccoli. 

The meatloaf was an immediate hit among the two parents and my youngest, who devoured it for dinner and lunch the following day. The mashed potatoes were better than any I’d made on my own, the green beans were crisp, and the entire dish felt seasoned perfectly. 

The sweet and sour chicken, which came with noodles, rice, broccoli, and popcorn-style chicken along with sauces, admittedly tasted far less seasoned than the first meal to all four members of my picky family. 

Similarly, the barbecue chicken tasted great though a little bland. As we were eating, though, it dawned on my husband and me that maybe that’s the point. You can add or subtract sauces based on your kid’s willingness to try new things, but, for the most part, these recipes are designed to very gently push a kid’s boundaries, not wow the parental palette every time. The sauce was toddler-friendly enough to warrant a few bites from my youngest (though my picky 3-year-old was not interested. Not that that’s saying much!). In the end, my husband and I both agreed it was one of our favorites thus far.

I wound up freezing the final meal in the series, ravioli with meatballs and a side of broccoli, and can report back that, while I wouldn’t recommend freezing broccoli, the result was comparable to the other three fresh meals. The ciabatta garlic bread in particular won rave reviews from all four diners.

• Tovala takes decision fatigue out of dinner prep. The two adults in my household loved knowing what was for dinner in advance, versus the last-minute scramble to make a toddler-friendly meal at 6 p.m. and a parent meal post-bedtime. Plus, if you don’t like the upcoming week’s menu, you can skip it. 
• It eliminates so much of the multitasking. With Tovala recipes, there’s so much less guesswork around everything from oven temperature (recipes are calibrated to the smart toaster oven) to seasoning measurements while simultaneously managing little kids. I also loved not having to cook everything separately. 
• Cleanup is easier (though it still requires a little elbow grease). The individual aluminum tins are recyclable, but the oven’s components, like the fryer basket and the pan, will obviously have to be cleaned after each use.
• The recipes are legit family-friendly. The recipes I tried were slightly elevated takes on the classic family meals I grew up with, and the rotating menu includes options in that same vein. What looks like toddler-approved chicken, pasta, and broccoli to your kid is, for parents, Blackened Chicken Thigh with Cacio e Pepe and Buttered Broccoli.
• The nutrition facts are available. We already know that restaurant meals can spike calorie counts by more than double of the same dish prepared at home. Tovala isn’t quite that outrageous, though some of the meals are higher in saturated fats and sodium than I’d prefer, but you can also browse different meals and nutrition facts prior to choosing your meals for the week.

• It’s not necessarily organic. I try to buy all-organic everything, especially produce and meat. Tovala meals aren’t certified organic. Their ingredients do come from suppliers approved under the Safe Quality Food Institute (SQF) program, a certification system that audits food safety, quality, and handling standards. The food is prepped in facilities regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  
• The branded ecosystem. While you can use the Tovala oven without the app to cook your own recipes (I air-fried a tray of seasoned broccoli), I don’t love having to generally rely on a brand’s ecosystem, and on WiFi (although the alerts to check on my dishes were certainly helpful when I stepped away from the kitchen). 
• Portions are on the smaller side for large (or hungrier!) families. The meal plan is marketed as serving four adults, and it isn’t ideal for large families. I found that, after dinner (wherein just under three portions were usually consumed), we had enough leftovers for one adult, or two toddlers, but not more.  
• The cost will add up. Depending on your grocery spend and takeout bills, the subscription cost is likely higher than what you’re already spending per meal. That said, my household has been in a bad takeout pattern that we’re trying to nix. I’ll run the numbers, but it looks like I’d break even or maybe even save slightly depending on which plan we choose.

Yes, depending on the size of your family and your budget. In my case, I’m planning to try it for at least another month and then compare it to what I usually spend on takeout, since for my young family of four it’s replacing that habit and not a carefully budgeted meal plan. I love the idea of buying myself more time and less decision fatigue.

Tovala hits a super useful balance: It’s easier than planning and shopping for meals yourself: the pre-prepped ingredients make it simple for kids to help (and clean up), and once everything’s on the tray you can just scan and resume wrangling your family for dinner. It’s not especially adventurous, but it’s a solid, balanced meal that’s tasty enough for the grown-ups. Best of all, it gets everyone fed with minimal effort and cleanup. Honestly, that sounds like a nightly win!